


One More Lap Around the Sun

by weakinteraction



Category: Empire Records (1995)
Genre: F/F, First Time, Getting Together, References to Deb's suicide attempt, Snark, references to other relationships - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:47:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25792342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weakinteraction/pseuds/weakinteraction
Summary: Some dates achieve significance, others have it imposed on them.
Relationships: Deb/Gina (Empire Records)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 6
Collections: Limited Theatrical Release 2020





	One More Lap Around the Sun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [monsoon_moon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/monsoon_moon/gifts).



_August 25, 1995_

"The line was all the way out the door and down the street, man," Eddie said. "It was unreal. I was just trying to get home but I had to, like, stop and stare."

"I still can't believe it," Bobby said. "For computer software? And not even a game. Just, you know, the boring stuff it runs on."

"Shut up, Warren," Deb said, more good-naturedly than she normally did. Bobby had given up objecting when they called him that; he gave her a shrug as though to say that he recognised that that particular "Shut up" was well-deserved.

"I guess we'll have to learn to use it eventually," Lucas said. "Or at least you will," he said, looking at Deb.

"What, for the taxes?" Deb shook her head, the feeling of her hair swishing as she did so still unfamiliar; she'd only just begun to grow it out again. "Joe won't want to change the way that works until at least two quarters beyond the point that he absolutely has to."

The tannoy clicked on, and they all heard Gina announce to the three people idly milling around the aisles, "Valued customers, we regret to announce that several of the employees of your store are _still_ talking about Windows 95." She paused for a moment then went on, "Did you know that Windows 95 is available on CD, and yet is one of the only CDs we do _not_ stock here at Empire Records? And do you know why? That's right, it's because we are your local _music_ store. So why not treat yourselves to some music _and_ save us from the most boring conversation in all of recorded history?"

"She's right, you know," Deb said.

Lucas put out his hands. "Gentlemen, there is one thing I have learned working at this store, and it's that if Deb and Gina agree on something, it must be true."

"All right, then," Eddie said. "New topic: this weekend's _awesome party_."

"See, that wasn't too hard, was it?" Gina said, stepping back down again. "And it _is_ going to be awesome. We have to give Corey and AJ a send-off to remember."

They began to discuss the plans in detail again, Deb nodding when asked to confirm that she would be bringing the spirits she'd promised. She sort of wished she hadn't -- she didn't really want to go to the party at all. She could at least slip away from the party early, pleading the need to catch the last bus -- she still hadn't been able to afford to replace the Vespa.

But somewhere deeper in her brain came the other thoughts, the ones she didn't want to admit to herself were there. Gina would be at the party. Not that Gina wasn't there at the store every day, but a party was a different sort of thing.

Deb wasn't bothered by the fact that she was attracted to a girl -- when she'd finally realised that she was gay, almost everything about her dissatisfaction with her life up to that point had made 100% more sense -- but the question that had been tormenting her for the last four months was why did the specific girl in question have to be _Gina_? Why was it Gina who appeared in her dreams -- and yes, OK, her very much awake fantasies too -- doing all manner of things, or, increasingly, having all manner of things done to her?

She was so deep in her thoughts about her that she took a moment to realise that the genuine article had disappeared.

"Where's Gina?" she asked.

"In back," Bobby said. "I guess she's doing some more party planning."

"Right," Deb said. "I'll just go ... see if she needs some help."

By the time she reached the door through to the back room, the snatches of conversation she heard indicated they had moved on to the playlist for the party. Or possibly just the records they planned to play later that day.

Deb walked through to find Gina sat on the couch, hugging one of the cushions. "Hey," she said.

"Go away," Gina said.

"O...K," Deb said, stepping backwards gingerly.

But before the door was even a quarter of the way open, Gina had burst into tears. "I'm going to miss her!"

Deb went to sit next to her and -- slightly warily -- put a hand on Gina's shoulder. "Yeah, it's going to be really different once they're gone."

"I mean, who am I going to talk to all day? _Lucas_?"

"You can talk to me," Deb said. "I'm not _wholly_ a bitch, right?"

"I guess you've become vaguely tolerable when you want to be," Gina said.

"I've become a lot of things," Deb said. There was a moment, just a tiny fraction of a second, when part of her wanted to spill out her biggest secret, confess everything -- both that she was pretty sure she was a lesbian, and that she had become hopelessly attracted to Gina. But the better judgment that wished that last part wasn't true prevailed, and she said, "And so can you, you know? Remember what you said, how you wanted to try out for a band? You should do that."

Gina thought about it. "Yeah, I did say that, didn't I? And then there was the whole concert on top of the store thing, with-- Well, anyway. Was I good, do you think?"

"Well, Berko's band got that deal off the coverage. To be honest, I think it sucks they never asked you--"

"I would have said no," Gina said quickly. "But hey, I mean, it was a while back now but do you think people would still be interested ... Like, I wouldn't have to try out for a band if I was _starting_ the band, would I? Other people would have to try out for me."

"That has potential," Deb said. "As a way of avoiding trying out, I mean."

"Screw it, I'm going to do it. But not right now, there's a party to plan."

"That's the spirit," Deb said.

"You're not going to make a habit of being nice to me, are you?"

"Not if you don't want me to."

"Before you stop, though, you have to actually answer my question," Gina said.

"Which one?"

"Was I good? When I was singing?"

"Vaguely tolerable," Deb said.

Gina laughed. "You know what? I'll take it."

* * *

_December 31, 1995_

The party was in full swing, the customers spilling out into the street. It had taken on a life of its own, so that all they had to do now was sit on the stairs and keep the vaguest of vague eyes on things.

Deb still couldn't believe that she had been the one to suggest hosting a New Year's party at the store. "I mean, we're open 'til midnight anyway, right?" She knew exactly where the idea had come from, though. After the goodbye party for Corey and AJ had, indeed, given her plenty of opportunities to rue her attraction to Gina while failing to act on it in any meaningful way, it was a clear sign of her subconscious being a glutton for punishment that she wanted to repeat the experience. She'd covered for herself by claiming to have been thinking only of the store's finances; she still had no real idea that anyone had bought it.

But boy, was she regretting it now. The whole evening had been horrendous, as far as she was concerned. Terrible music choices from almost everyone, Mark wheeling out the TV so that everyone could watch the NY ball drop even though as far as Deb was concerned anyone coming here wouldn't be interested -- there was a small crowd gathering round it now that there was less than quarter of an hour to go, and if anything Mark -- Mark, of all people -- turning out to be right just made it worse.

Add to that the banal conversation -- there were only so many ways that even Deb could find to express her utter disinterest in New Year's Resolutions -- and AJ and Corey behaving in utterly nauseating fashion, and she wished that she was anywhere else.

"Well, sure, it's all right when you know who you're going to be kissing at midnight," Mark was saying when she tuned back into the conversation, as if to prove her point entirely. "But for those of us who don't ..."

"Don't buy into that nonsense, my friend," Lucas replied. "It's just the slightly seedier end of the Hallmark-industrial complex."

Eddie nodded vigorously. "You gotta learn to be happy in yourself, man."

"Besides," Lucas went on, "if you're really worried about it there's always Gina."

"Ex-cuse me," Gina said. "As it happens I won't be kissing anyone, even if it is out of extreme pity. _My_ New Year's Resolution is to hook up way less. You know, really concentrate on the singing part of being a singer, rather than the groupies."

Her band _had_ had some limited success on the local circuit, although many of their fans were basically the store's regular customers. Deb couldn't let that one sail past without a swing at it, though. "Right, 'cos you're Little Miss Regency Novel."

In a surprisingly good English accent, Gina shot back, "Indeed, my dear, I intend to be far more discerning in future to whom I bestow my affections."

"Should that be 'whom' or 'who'?" Lucas wondered.

"Gee, it would be good if someone Harvard-educated were here who could help us with that," Gina said, back in her usual accent. Then raising her voice a little, she went on, "If only she wasn't too busy necking with her boyfriend to answer."

Without breaking off from kissing AJ, Corey extended her middle finger in their general direction.

"You are, like, eight minutes early," Mark said.

Which was when that terrible Bryan Adams song came on.

"Oh, no," Deb said. "No, there is a limit." She stood up and headed over to the sound system.

The others were behind her, Lucas at their head. He threw himself in front of the system just as she was reaching for the switch. "Veto isn't a thing during the party," he said, then undermined himself fatally by looking over her shoulder to the others. "Is it?"

Gina nodded. "If I thought it had been, I'd have done something about Eddie's Grateful Dead medley earlier."

"Hey, we lost Jerry this year, we had to pay our respects," Eddie said, holding up his hands reverently.

"For forty-seven minutes?" Gina retorted.

"Anyway, what gives, Deb?" Mark put in. "You, like, never use your veto."

"Was this your choice?" Deb asked. "Figures." 

"Hey, it's kinda romantic--"

"You mean you thought it might put someone in the mood to say yes when you propositioned them just before midnight."

"Harsh," Mark said. "Way harsh. But fair, I guess."

"OK, new rule, as of now," Lucas said. "Veto is a thing during the party. But if you use it you have to put Rex Manning on instead."

"Oh, wow, man, you actually went there," Mark said.

Deb looked over to where Corey and AJ were still entwined on the stairs; she wouldn't have heard it. Then she realised that Gina had vanished.

"You know what, forget it, play whatever you like," she said, slipping into the back.

Gina was in the back room, determinedly not crying.

"I just need a minute alone," she said when she heard the door.

"Sure," Deb said. "I'll just--"

"Oh, it's you," Gina said. "I figured it would be one of the boys."

"Nope, you got me."

"Go on then, give me your best cutting remark." She sniffed. "That's why you're here, right?"

"I came to check if you were OK, but if that's what you want, I can make fun of your hair."

"Well, I guess when you've gone through every style known to humanity in the last eight months you'd be pretty well placed to comment on that," Gina said.

"Ooh, good one," Deb said, "you got me there."

"So why are you here?"

"Would you believe I came to check if you were OK?"

"I am," Gina said warily. "I mean, I am OK. Jury's still out on the believing."

"Lucas is dumb," Deb said. "But I think we all kind of know that."

"I'm dumb, too," Gina said, and the tears threatened to start in earnest for a moment, but she blinked rapidly, seemingly determined not to wreck her makeup at any cost.

"Everyone's dumb sometimes," Deb said. "Even me."

"Well, I was definitely dumb that day."

"Got you beat," Deb said, turning her wrists upward for a moment to show the nearly completely faded scars. "The day before that I did pretty much the dumbest thing I ever have."

From the party outside, they could hear the countdown. As Gina went on cataloguing her justifiable regrets, Deb's brain was racing. Could she? Should she?

By the time everyone was yelling "Happy New Year!" she had decided: she would. She leaned forward and kissed Gina, softly and gently. Gina's lips yielded to hers, warm and tender.

"You only did that to ruin my New Year's Resolution right out of the gate," Gina said accusingly after they had broken off.

"No, I did it because of mine."

Gina's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "I thought you said New Year's Resolutions were dumb."

"Well, then, I guess that means I did a dumb thing for a dumb reason with a dumb person." She counted off each dumb on her fingers. "So I win the dumbness jackpot."

"Oh yeah, what's the prize?"

"I don't know," Deb said.

"It can be another spin," Gina said, quickly adding, "I mean, if you want. If the whole extravaganza of exquisite dumbness experience wasn't so completely awful that--"

But she didn't get to finish the sentence because Deb was already kissing her again, harder this time, sucking Gina's bottom lip between her teeth and pulling her towards her, first by the neck, then the shoulders, then the ass, at which point she discovered that Gina was already wriggling out of her pants.

"I don't want things to be weird between us," Gina said as Deb knelt down in front of her. It felt strange to be moving so fast, and yet at the same time completely natural. And Gina certainly wasn't objecting.

"They won't," Deb said.

"So you'll still -- ahh! -- hate me in the morning?" Gina asked, the involuntary exhalation arising from Deb leaning forward to press her tongue into her mound through her panties.

Deb broke off for a moment and grinned up at her. "Promise," she said. "Though I am hoping that you'll at least stop making remarks about my piercings by the time I'm done ..."

* * *

_April 7, 1996_

Deb sat on her barstool, looking out at the sea of sweaty people packed into the room. "LIVE MUSIC every Sunday", the sign outside proclaimed, but from the looks of things, it was the "Open 'til LATE" that held greater appeal.

Tough crowd, then. There were a few people near the front who seemed to actually be there to see the band; Deb recognised many of them from the store -- one had even waved at her; she'd lifted her hand the bare minimum amount required to acknowledge him.

Deb downed the remainder of her beer and put the glass down.

"Another?" the barman said.

"Make it a Scotch this time," Deb said. "On the rocks." After a moment's more thought, she added, "A double."

"Pretty terrible, aren't they?" the barman said with a nod toward the stage as he poured her drink.

"Actually, I'm with the band," she said, as deadly serious as she could manage.

"Oh, shit," he said. "Forget I said that, OK?"

Deb gave him a momentary grin as she took her drink. "I'm fucking with you. I mean, I am with the band. Kind of. But they are terrible."

"What does 'kind of' mean?"

"I lost a bet." A stupid bet, she didn't go on to explain. It had been a long, boring Saturday and the others had all come down with food poisoning from a dodgy seafood pizza, leaving Deb and Gina to mind the store all day by themselves. So they'd competed to see who could ring up the most sales, the loser having to do whatever the winner wanted. Deb knew exactly what she would have had done with Gina if she'd won, but she'd also known that Gina was almost certain to win. Perhaps the most infuriating thing about her was that she was actually good at customer service, when sufficiently motivated. Not that the short skirt did her any harm, either.

But Deb had been a little disappointed when it turned out her forfeit was to come to this performance. She had already sat through enough bad gigs for a lifetime watching Berko's band, but this was a new level of excruciating. The songs that were covers just reminded you that the original versions were better, and the original songs made you wish that they'd play another cover. The two guitarists knew three-and-a-half chords between them, the obligatory dude on drums had two tricks, neither of them very good. Gina wasn't exactly the world's greatest lead singer, either, though she did have a good line in between-songs patter, riffing on things the same way she did over the PA at the store. In spite of all the obvious flaws, though, Deb was faintly horrified to discover that she was enjoying herself watching them. Exactly how lacking in objectivity had she become about Gina?

All in all, though, when the time had come to leave the apartment, she'd been glad of the distraction. She'd told herself that the anniversary didn't matter, that she was well beyond all that now, but the whole day she'd felt as though the ghost of her year-ago self was ever-present; could remember everything she'd done.

"OK, then, I think we have time for one last song," Gina said from the stage. For a moment, Deb felt as though she was staring straight at her, but when the barman shrugged in response she cringed at not having realised Gina was just checking that hadn't run over. "This is a new one I wrote myself, and it's-- Well, you'll see."

The song started slowly, at least relative to the rest of their repertoire, and the bass player in particular seemed to be managing to get across a sense of ... yearning. Gina, meanwhile, was definitely moving at least a little bit away from the shouting end of the singing-shouting spectrum.

And _what_ she was singing:

" _The memory of your fingers_ / _how the feeling of them lingers_ "  
" _I saw your scars_ / _and then the stars_ "

The song built towards the end back to the shouty end of things, Gina repeating " _I want to hate you_ / _I hate to want you_ " over and over, until the words all started to blur together --"hate to want to hate to want you" -- as the rhythm increased, finally ending on one long howl of a "You", feedback looping through the speakers until it overwhelmed Gina's voice, and then everything cut out.

By the time it was over, Deb felt as though she'd been turned inside out, numb on the inside but everything she'd been afraid to admit, even to herself, on full display. Nobody else seemed to notice, though.

She downed the double Scotch.

"Another?"

"No, thanks, I'm going to ..." and before she had even worked out exactly what it was she was going to do, she'd jumped off the stool and was making her way through the packed bar towards the door to the tiny backstage area.

A few of the people who'd been at the front were there too as the band were decompressing. Gina even signed an autograph for one of them.

After a while -- a while long enough for Deb to have recovered most of her composure after the shock of Gina's song -- they'd all gone. "You have, like, actual fans," Deb said. "Impressive."

"All ten of them turned up tonight," Gina said, but the smile on her face was genuine. "Everyone, this is Deb, from the store. Deb, this is everyone."

"Hi Deb-from-the-store; I'm Julie," the bass player said, rolling her eyes at Gina's ineffective introduction.

"Matt," the drummer said.

"No offence, but I'm almost certainly not going to remember these names for more than about five minutes."

"Pox," the rhythm guitarist put in.

"OK," said Deb. "That I am going to remember."

"Her real name's Polly!" Gina said delightedly, earning a scowl in response from Pox.

"So what did you think?" Matt asked.

"Yeah," Deb said. "I mean--"

"We haven't played the last song in public before," Gina said.

Deb looked round at the others in the room; they were expecting some sort of response. Eventually, Deb went for, "You got that finger/linger rhyme from the Cranberries."

"That's what _I_ said," Pox said.

"There are only so many rhymes in the English language!" Gina said. "And besides, I have esses on the end. It's _completely_ different."

"As long as we all agree that that thing I did with the hi-hat was awesome," Matt said, "then I can leave happy."

"Don't go yet!" Gina said. "There is much alcohol to be drunk."

"I have to; I have rounds early in the morning."

After he'd left, Deb said, "So what, he works for the USPS?"

" _Ward_ rounds," Pox said. "He's a med student. Pretty good one, too, as far as we can tell."

"And, you know, could be handy if anyone's overcome with excitement in the audience," Gina said.

"I bet you're just waiting desperately for that to happen," Deb said.

"I have to go too," Pox said, bending down to give Gina a kiss on the cheek. "Sitter charges double after midnight."

"Everything I ever read about the rock and roll lifestyle is a lie," Deb said. "I stand here, surrounded by the wreckage of all my illusions."

"Bye then!" Pox said.

"So I guess it's just the three of us," Gina said as she reached for a bottle of vodka. "Nice and cosy."

"It's OK, I get it," Julie said. "You're the one the song's about, aren't you?" She wasn't looking at Deb but Gina, and her uncharacteristic blush was more than confirmation enough. With a note of bitterness, she said, "I guess I'll leave you two to it."

As soon as she was gone, Gina said, "Sit down, have vodka."

"I've already had beer and Scotch, I'm not sure it's the world's best--" but Gina was already pressing a warm glass into her hand, and the feeling of her fingers against Deb's was electrifying.

Deb said, as evenly as she could, "You wrote a song about me."

"Well, you know, about _us_ ," Gina said. "Or at least, a song about how there may or may not be an us."

"Right," Deb said.

"I know I said I didn't want things to change, but ... I think I've decided I wouldn't have minded if they had. Or, you know, if they did, even if they hadn't then."

"Oh wow, very eloquent," Deb said.

"See? The song works better," Gina said.

"So, not for nothing, have you and Julie ...? Only I'm thinking she seemed a little jealous."

"I don't have to answer that!" Gina said. "I take the Third, or whatever."

"Fifth," Deb said.

"Are you sure?"

"The Third Amendment is about how you don't have to let soldiers stay over in your house."

"Oh, well, I wouldn't mind that _at all_ ," Gina said with a smirk. "You must be right."

"What happened to your New Year's Resolution?"

"That was to be more discriminating, not turn into some kind of born again virgin!" Gina said. "And besides, I had to find out if I was actually into girls as well as boys, or if the way I felt about you was just some sort of infuriating new facet of your general freak-of-nature-ness."

"And?"

"Girls are hot," Gina said. "Which I should have realised much earlier because I've always known that _I'm_ hot ..."

"I wasn't really asking for the details of your strangely narcissistic experimentation," Deb said. "More the 'way you feel about me' part."

Gina gave her a half-amused, half-sultry look. "You _were_ listening to the song, weren't you?"

"You know, it's exactly a year ago that I was--" She looked down at her wrists, and all of a sudden it was as if the time in between collapsed, so that everything that had happened over the past year -- all the things she'd discovered about herself, all the things she'd done, and hadn't done -- meant nothing, and she was still the person who'd felt so desperately invisible that it was easier to simply disappear forever.

"I know," Gina said quietly, grabbing those same wrists with her hands, unknowingly anchoring Deb in the present. Then she brought them up to her mouth and kissed them, one after the other. Eventually, she let go, and Deb let her hands fall back to Gina's lap, reaching in to kiss her, warm and long and wet, her tongue running over the top of Gina's teeth, then sucking on her lower lip with something that she didn't want to call desperation, but was certainly an _urgency_. Gina responded in kind, grabbing hold of the back of Deb's head to pull her closer still.

"I still can't believe you wrote a song about me," Deb said when they finally broke apart for air, leaning in so close that their foreheads bumped together. " _So_ lame."

"Worked, didn't it?" Gina said, pulling her in for another kiss.


End file.
